IT IS absolutely incredible that while more than $9 million in fines have been issued to people for not wearing face masks over the past eight months, not a single person has been able to pay online to date.

What's the point of fines if nobody can pay them?

This state of affairs makes a mockery of Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds's recent directive to the police to enforce the law to the utmost.

It also undermines the seriousness of the message being sent by the Executive and top-ranking medical officials about the deadliness of the covid19 pandemic.

It is, additionally, a tremendous disservice to the women and men who, as members of the police service, risk their lives daily to patrol the streets to intercept people breaking the law.

Between September 6 and May 6, a total of 9,778 tickets were issued to people for failing to wear masks, amounting to $9,778,000. While these figures must be understood as spread over several divisions, they are nonetheless not insubstantial.

At a time when the State seems to be scraping the barrel when it comes to generating revenue, it is disheartening that this money is not being collected. It is one thing to show compassion to citizens. It is another thing to be inept and sloppy.

Whether or not Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi makes it to the Senate today, he has his work cut out for him. It is baffling how, in a situation in which so much of our business is now conducted online, a reported gap in the law has persisted for months and months as the deaths continue to mount.

All of it is at odds with the tearful picture presented by the Government at successive media briefings in relation to the management of this pandemic. Instead of being in charge, the State appears to have been caught woefully unprepared in relation to the adjustments required to take receipt of payments.

Last week, Mr Al-Rawi said he would ask Cabinet to give the nod for President Paula-Mae Weekes to proclaim the Electronic Payments into and out of Court Act 2018, clearing the legal stoppage.

What about the practical management of these payments?

In the past months, there have been successive deferrals because there was reportedly no facility to make such payments online. But the Attorney General, who has been in quarantine, assures people who have been ticketed will be able to pay electronically by May 15.

Yet it was only on May 5 that the Judiciary, which has long boasted of having systems in place to allow people to pay child maintenance and traffic tickets online, even invited expressions of interest for a 'Customer to State' electronic payments system.

Why are such steps only now being taken? And who will be held accountable for this lapse?